1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a user-tailorable phonetic data system.
2. Description of Related Art
Nearly all languages, even Japanese and Korean, have an accepted standard of pronunciation and an alphabetic for writing it, using dictionaries on computer (DOC). Chinese is unique in its wide range of pronunciations and lack of a tradition of phonetic script. To some extent, Mandarin serves the role of a standard, which can be represented via the modern inventions of pinyin romanization and of bopomofo phonetic alphabet. However, Mandarin still feels foreign to many Chinese-speaking people.
As a result, many computer-based Chinese character input methods, known as Input Method Editors (IME), are based on the visual shape of the characters, or even on abstract numeric codings. This gives rise to a “worse is better” situation in the market, where exceptionally inefficient, effortful methods have become extremely popular. Also, although phonetic-based Input Method Editors exist, their utility is greatly hampered by the vast variation in dialect and romanization habits among individual users.
Extensive study has been devoted to Chinese dialects and their similarities and differences. Examples of reports can be found in “Measuring Relationship Among Dialects: DOC and Related Resources”, by Chin Chuan Cheng, Computational Linguistics & Chinese Language Processing 2.1:41-72, 1997 and “Quantitative Methods in Comparative Dialectology”, by Xiwen Ma, Zhongguo Yuwen, 212, pp. 348-360, 1989. Also, it has been reported that, using a series of 47 pronunciation tests, a speaker's dialect can be determined.